"More sweetly sounds the crying of one's own child than even the chanting of the sûtra in the service for the dead." The Buddhist service alluded to is held to be particularly beautiful.
But such admiration is rare. More frequently the sémi is represented as crying for its nightly repast of dew:—
Sémi wo kiké,—
Ichi-nichi naité
Yoru no tsuyu.
—Kikaku.
Hear the sémi shrill! So, from earliest dawning,
All the summer day he cries for the dew of night.
Yū-tsuyu no
Kuchi ni iru madé
Naku sémi ka?
—Baishitsu.
Will the sémi continue to cry till the night-dew fills its mouth?
Occasionally the sémi is mentioned in love-songs of which the following is a fair specimen. It belongs to that class of ditties commonly sung by geisha. Merely as a conceit, I think it pretty, in spite of the factitious pathos; but to Japanese taste it is decidedly vulgar. The allusion to beating implies jealousy:—
Nushi ni tatakaré,
Washa matsu no sémi
Sugaritsuki-tsuki
Naku bakari!
Beaten by my jealous lover,—
Like the sémi on the pine-tree
I can only cry and cling!
And indeed the following tiny picture is a truer bit of work, according to Japanese art-principles (I do not know the author's name):—